


My Grave is Mine to Dig

by MistressAkira



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (kinda), Cool, Ficlet, Joseph Kavinsky is His Own Warning, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Use, Purple Prose, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Song fic, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, cool?, i just wanted this off my desktop after a year, idk how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 08:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16636052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressAkira/pseuds/MistressAkira
Summary: The points of no return in one’s life do not always announce themselves. They do not always come handily marked LEDGE or ABANDON HOPE, and nine times out of ten there is no rope to pull yourself back up if you have second thoughts or a net to catch your fall; there isn’t even always the sensation of stepping over the edge, or the process of falling, but what there always was was flatline sensation of hitting the ground. And knowing that for better or for worse, the old you was dead.Ronan does not remember approaching the precipice labeled ADAM PARRISH and thinking it might be a fun hole to die in.





	My Grave is Mine to Dig

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Completely original concept: Ronan angsting over his feelings for Adam and wondering what the fuck he’s doing with his life.
> 
> Okay maybe not, but like every TRC fan ever, I had my own thoughts about this time in Ronan’s life, however I sort of wanted to focus on how he copes during this time. Anyways, 2nd TRC fic! I’m still trying. This has been on my desk top for nearly a fucking year dEAR GOD. Title taken from the Beartooth song of the same name; there’s a lot of really good Beartooth songs that suit Ronan very well, including one called Beaten In Lips that is kind of my song for Adam…

_It’s only you, Why Do you hate you?_

_I don’t._

Strong words. Brave, life-changing, self-actualizing words. Words, that in the light of day and not agreed to under the duress of night horror and imminent death, are not as easy to put into conscious action.

On the contrary.

It’s fucking impossible.

Without Kavinsky to race and remind him that that _yes, you do matter,_ and the precious Sundays allotted for pious self-hatred, and the pleasant, muted denial of _perfect in its concealment,_ the dark star known as Ronan Lynch’s sanity had officially reached the end of its life and was ready to go full white dwarf and fucking implode upon itself.

And then there was Adam Parrish.

Adam fucking Parrish.

Adam.

Fucking.

Parrish.

The points of no return in one’s life do not always announce themselves. They do not always come handily marked LEDGE or ABANDON HOPE, and nine times out of ten there is no rope to pull yourself back up if you have second thoughts or a net to catch your fall; there isn’t even always the sensation of stepping over the edge, or the process of falling, but what there always _was_ was flatline sensation of hitting the ground. And knowing that for better or for worse, the old you was dead.

Ronan does not remember approaching the precipice labeled ADAM PARRISH and thinking it might be a fun hole to die in. But he does remember the impending ground and the eerie clarity of _I couldn’t stop this if I tried._

And he had tried.

Not thinking about it worked for a while. Ignoring the music with every fiber of his being and drowning himself in denial between the beats was an easy lull for Ronan to fall into. Easier when he drank. He’d found his vice. It was at the bottom of a bottle and wanted him to die, and that was easier to swallow than every infinitesimal thought of Adam that pervaded his head.

Church was an escape. Hating himself had been a privilege within those stained-glass walls, _what am I what am I what am I._

But it was the devil that sent him to church every Sunday morning, and every Sunday evening, it was also the devil that met him on the dusky Henrietta back roads.

This was where Ronan unloaded his soul. The box in church felt like a crypt, the holes between him and the voice of god big enough that the pieces would fall through whether Ronan wanted them to or not. Out here, everything was everything, the road and the rubber and the _burn_ his confession.

One Hail Mary for the hole in his heart. Two for his self-destructive habits (it wasn’t lying if he’d never said he’d stop). His last for the fast approaching ground, closer every time he saw Adam and Blue hold hands or look at each other or when Adam looked at him.

Jospeh Kavinsky was the closest he got to resolution. Ronan didn’t do casual relationships, but what he had with Kavinsky wasn’t casual; it was the partnership between a needle and a vein. Ronan had learned, in seventeen years of existence and nearly two despising said existence, that the only way he copes is by fucking things up. It wasn’t a healthy way of coping, but it did stem the bleeding.

Kavinsky was a way stem the bleeding. Sometimes, the opposite was true and he nearly bled Ronan dry. But then again, Ronan was in the middle of hemorrhaging regret, riding the pill-high of _what am I what am I what are We,_ and couldn’t care less at the time.

But that time had come and gone.

He fell too hard, too fast, and nothing would stop him except the cold hard ground and a broken heart.

And he knew, he _feared,_ the inevitability of it. He couldn’t stop it, but he could ease the fall. Ruin this while he had a chance. Fuck it so far up beyond belief ignoring it would become easy. Make Adam hate him, take away every possibility that didn’t end in flames, throw it into the abyss and drown whatever of his life was left in booze.

But he didn’t want that. As hard as it was, as easy as it could be, he didn’t want that.

Not anymore.

The human body is miraculous, in that it handles fathomless self-loathing just as it would any other third-degree, life-threatening injury: it heals itself when it’s ready.

Ready isn’t a date or time. Ready just happened to occur after Ronan had watched others lose everything and couldn’t bear to force himself to do the same.

Ready came faster than Ronan could have ever wished or hoped for or dreamed or even wanted it to. Ronan wasn’t ready to _be ready_ , but who ever really is? Ready is like parenthood. When Ready arrives, you don’t deny it, you take it in your hands, raise it like a raven chick you once gave birth to from your dreams in a church on a night you got drunk out of your mind and your friends- the most important people to you- feared the things they thought you were _ready for_.

But Ronan bled, and Ronan had _died,_ and Ronan had laughed, and despite his best efforts, Ronan had loved.

And he accepted this, the same way he had accepted his proclamation on that 4th of July night. In the daylight it might be hard to look at, and it might be even harder to talk about, but it was there, it was out, it was a birdman’s corpse in the trunk and a mixtape’s home in an old car’s tape deck and a barn of sleeping cattle and a horrible file of dreamt-up blackmail.

A car with a wind-up wheel and an old tune.

Ronan isn’t ready when it happens, but whoever really can be? You just have to be ready to face what comes next.

This hole he had thrown himself down, he had dug it himself. He’d always lived like he’d had his back to the gravestone already, and it was true; Adam Parrish would be his grave, and to be interred in Adam Fucking Parrish was the fucking highest honor.

_My grave is mine to dig._

He’d spent the time, easing through his layers, knowing the unknowable, inch by inch, handfuls of dirt turning to spades and then to shovels full, until the chasm was before him and the only way left was down.

And down.

Down.

_Down._

Ronan wasn’t ready when he landed. But he’d long since accepted the consequences.

But then Adam caught him, and Ronan wasn’t ready for that either.


End file.
